It’s amazing how Greg Sheridan of The Australian can make mountains out of Howard’s mole hill-like creations. Sheridan’s latest garbage, ‘Former foe now close ally’, attempts to paint Howard as the great Australian statesman that has mended the fence that was destroyed during the Second World War if we are to believe this patronizing rubbish: “It is a tribute to the pragmatism and vision of both leaders that the two nations, bitter enemies in the Pacific war, have grown so close since the end of World War II.”
The war ended over 60 years ago in the first half of the last century! We’ve been trading and dealing with Japan for yonks and the Australian military have been working with the Japanese military in Iraq for a year or so now. What’s the big deal now that we have a treaty with the Japanese? Would Sheridan have come out with same nonsense had Australia signed a treaty with modern Germany?
I guess Sheridan is just big-noting his lying mate Howard with a few accolades in order to help him along in the lead-up to the next election when the Lying Little Tyrant is going to need all the help he can get just to hang on to his own seat let alone government.
AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.
6 comments:
Considering that the ALP (under Hawke and Keating) were both, respectively, close the US and pushing for closer Australian/Asian integration, why do you think it was that neither was able to deliver a security treaty with Japan?
Anonymous, you seem to have missed the point. The treaty is incidental; it was the totally unnecessary historical fanfare that Sheridan attached to it, obviously given to provide Howard with a statesman-like aura which would not have been given had the same treaty been signed with Germany, that was the point.
The war ended over 60 years ago.
Judging by some of the letters to the editor in Fairfax and Newscorp papers - many critical of the PM for signing the treaty - it would seem that to many Australians 60 years is not quite long enough. There is a wave of anger (one I don't feel) against the PM in some circles for doing this, indeed, it is from people who would normally be Howard supporters.
The treaty made international news with Fox News, al Jazeera, CNBC and MSNBC all picking it up. France 24 and Deutsche Welle even had stories on it.
I think it is signifcant as it is a security treaty with a country that cannot really help to secure Australia. Indeed, it would commit Australia to some action in support of an attacked Japan when it is clear that Japan's own constitution would not allow it to assist Australia in the same manner. This alone makes it significant when you consider the East Asian giant to Japan's east who would have been watching very, very closely indeed.
Yopu may disagree with the emphasis Sheridan puts on it (and hs is hyperbolic at times) but it is a significant treaty whether he believes it is or not.
The treaty is far from being significant; it is just a showpiece that is not going to make an iota of difference to the current status quo. Japans well known stance is a given - as indeed, is ours if push ever came to shove, with or without the new 'treaty'
The fact that there are still a few oldtimers who find it hard to forgive and forget hardly represents a 'wave of anger', and, if it does, it is only among the racists that would never accept friendship with Japan anyway.
Why is it that "a few oldtimers" are not significant but a few supporters of IAJV is?
Firstly, I didn't say that the oldtimers are not significant, I said the treaty was not significant. But if I had it would have been because the oldtimers numbers are diminishing whereas the numbers of IAJV supporters, as well as the voice of moderate Jews throughout the world, are increasing.
Think before you waste any more of my time with confused questions.
Post a Comment